00:00My first question is, I alluded to it in my opening statement on the state revolving funds.
00:07The dramatic cut that is proposed in the budget would mean that, for instance, in my state of West Virginia, a decrease from $36 million to $4 million.
00:19You know, being from New York and having rural areas, too, there's still a lot of places in rural America that either unserved or underserved in terms of healthy and clean water availabilities.
00:33Water systems are facing enormous pressures.
00:36Will you commit to working with the water sector and Congress to ensure that the SRFs remain a reliable source of investment?
00:43And what is the reasoning behind the dramatic cut there?
00:46To answer the first part of your question, yes, Chairman, absolutely.
00:51Look forward to working with you and other members of this committee on that.
00:56I think this moment presents an opportunity to talk about just how revolving it's been.
01:02There have been good, congressionally directed grants that have pulled money out of this source of funding towards House and Senate districts across the country.
01:15But those particular grants end up depleting funds from the account.
01:21I think that there is an opportunity here to have a conversation about that, which can strengthen the SRF as we talk about FY26 and beyond.
01:30Well, I would say as an appropriator myself and somebody who's done congressional directed expended into that account,
01:36I understand the pushback that states have when they don't want a specific project that then is counted against their revolving fund.
01:45But it still doesn't answer how are we going to, you know, even if we have the dramatic cut that's been proposed,
01:53not only will there be no money for this congressional directed spend, there's not going to be enough money to sustain these projects into the future.
02:00So I hope we can work together on that one.
02:03I am concerned about it.
02:04Let me ask you about the new chemical approval process because this has been,
02:08we've had hearings in the committee over the past four years about the inertia of the agency to be able to license new chemicals.
02:20A lot of times these new chemicals, I wouldn't say every time, but many times the new chemicals are coming forward because they're safer,
02:27they're greener, they have new technologies, and they're probably less wasteful,
02:32less potentials for contaminations because they are more advanced in the technology.
02:37Yet the past administration could never get these through.
02:40You made a pretty decisive move early on.
02:43Could you talk about that and what you think the results are going to be in terms of reviewing these new chemicals
02:48and making sure we get those cleaner, safer chemicals on the market and the old ones off the market?
02:54Chairman, when I was confirmed, I inherited a number of backlogs, new chemicals into the many hundreds,
03:03the pesticide review, about 14,000, state implementation plans, small refinery exemptions,
03:12the list goes on of all sorts of backlogs.
03:15As it relates to new chemicals, the feedback that I got from the career staff in the Office of Chemicals
03:23is that they would be able to reduce the backlog if they had two things.
03:27One, they were able to bring more scientists into their office to boost the amount of bandwidth that they have,
03:35which we have done.
03:37That's part of our reorg announcement from a couple weeks ago.
03:40And secondly, to bring their technology up to date because it was very outdated.
03:45Systems would crash and they would be locked out for days at a time.
03:50So we've been pursuing both.
03:52We have, with the pesticide review, been able to get through over 2,300 of reducing that backlog.
03:58And with the new chemicals review, we're looking forward to being able to eliminate that backlog as well.
04:04So it was primarily, one, increasing bandwidth, which we're doing,
04:07and two, improving technology, which we are also doing.
04:10At the same time, did you, you folded the Office of Science and Tech, is that correct?
04:15You folded an office into that new chemicals office.
04:18We, we're moving science, the scientists are going to, are able to compete no matter what programmatic,
04:24from all sorts of different program offices inside of EPA.
04:29The same goes with changes made inside of the Office of Air and Radiation,
04:34inside of the Office of Water, and elsewhere.
04:36We're creating a new Office of State Air Partnerships inside the Office of Air and Radiation
04:43to advance cooperative federalism and to get rid of one of the other backlogs with the state implementation plans.
04:48We're creating an Office of Applied Sciences and Environmental Solutions.
04:53We are boosting that science and research mission inside of these program offices
04:59to better fulfill our statutory obligations.
05:02All right.
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